Sunday, August 28, 2016

All of my plants that I grew so lovingly in the spring, watered all through the summer, fertilized and pruned are either pathetic, desperate for water, or downright crunchy. Because by the time I stumble home, sore and crabby, carrying my bag and at least one box full random items for cutting, dyeing, or filling out, I am completely uninterested in watering my plants.

That's why I buy succulents, folks. The hardier the better.

So we're back to school. I've been back for three weeks, being trained and training others, and last week was our first official week back with the kids. And I am dead tired. It's a Stranger Things marathon kind of weekend, people.

Recently, I was talking to some of my friends who are new to coaching, and she asked me, "What's the FIRST thing you do when you plan a family night?" It took me a little thinking, but I think I've narrowed down my family night planning to nine easy steps! I know that sounds ridiculous, but I wanted everything to be very clear.

Family nights are a great way to bring in the community. Get your parents involved in learning about the things your kids are working on every day! Here is the process I follow when I plan a family night for any content area (literacy, math, etc.)

1. Decide on your purpose.

Possible purposes:

To engage families in fun activities at school to help them enjoy the time they spend there.

To teach families easy things they can do to help their kids at home.

To help families create activities they can do at home.

To inform families about education on your campus or in your state.

To help families learn about and think about their future plans for their child's education.

The purpose you have will determine the kinds of activities families participate in!

2. Choose a theme.

Parents love a good theme! And it really helps when you're thinking of fun ways to approach the activities.

Why not? I have one small company provide bags for each family (just simple colorful party bags), and we've had our high school and university provide items for prizes. A local organization that provides free books to kids often donates books so each one of our kids can leave with a new book! Which leads me to my next point -

4. Incentivize it!

How will you incentivize attendance? At our school, every child who attends a family night event gets a "Free Dress Pass" when they leave. This means they can wear free dress rather than the uniform the next day. You could also do a "No Homework Pass."

Food is also a great incentive. For our Family Dream Night at the end of the year, every teacher brings a bag of hot dog buns and a package of hot dogs. Our admin pitches in to get the rest. Our coaches grill everything up and we give out one to each person that night! Huge turnout every year!

4. Think of the experiences you want kids to have with their parents.

I usually approach these as stations. Stations are an easy way to make sure that there's something for everyone to do and people don't spend too much time waiting for an activity.

For example, when I'm planning a literacy night, I want families to do the following things:

Write something creative together

Make a fun game they can play at home to practice accuracy

Read something together to practice fluency

Play an interactive game

Make a fun craft to get them talking and develop creativity and oral language

Make a snack while following a procedural text - our people show up when we feed them!

And obviously, read, read, read!!

I usually end up with about 6-7 stations. Each station needs about 2-4 people to man it. Obviously, crafts and snacks take a few more people than something simple like reading.

5. Figure out staffing.

I send out an email to teachers about three-four weeks before a family event asking who will attend. On our campus, teachers rotate, taking turns coming to our Family Math Night and Family Literacy Night. Everyone comes to Dream Board Night at the end of the year.

Teachers respond to my email and I start identifying who will work at each station. After I have everything figured out, I send everyone an email explaining where they will go that evening and what time they should arrive.

5. Plan your stations.

What will each of these things look like? Look to your theme for inspiration! Spend some time googling "pirate word list" or "superhero word list". Hunt on Pinterest for ideas related to your theme that you could integrate into a station.

Create materials for each station. These include the directions, which I print out and make into posters, and any handouts or graphic organizers people will need to participate in the activities.

6. Make a map.

I map out the areas I will be using for Family Night. We use the front entry in the school for bag and book distribution, the science lab for the snack station, the gym for several stations, and the cafeteria for several more. Noisy activities should be separated from quiet activities; messy activities need an easy-to-clean space.

I provide the map to the custodians who help me by setting up the tables, chairs, etc.

7. Make a list of materials you need.

Estimate the number of people and then examine your stations. How many of each material will you need for that many people? Make a list with quantities. If you need to buy it, buy it! If you need to make it, make it!

Sort all of your materials. To organize your snacks, it helps to provide each student with a little bag of everything they'll need. I also make a sample of each station activity to help teachers, kids, and parents know what they're expected to do there.

8. Organize everything on a cart.

This is a lifesaver. Instead of having boxes and piles everywhere, I set everything up on a multi-level cart. For example, everything I need for my first station (sentence strips, crayons, and pencils) go on the top level of the cart with a sticky note that says "Station One".

9. Send out invitations!

A week before the event, I send an invitation out to each student on colored paper. We announce it every day over the announcements, and we put it on the marquee as well. You could also send out a half-sheet the day before the event to remind parents.

Want to learn more? Check out my How to Plan an Awesome Family Night video!

Now you just have one thing to figure out: How will you support teacher growth and student success all year long?

Yup. This one's the biggie. Your room can be gorgeous, your binders labeled lovingly. Your training can be engaging, challenging, and fun. And then the school year begins, and every single person on your campus can go into their rooms, shut their doors, and you have 40 islands instead of an aligned team.

Your role as an instructional coach is to provide ongoing support to teachers in order to move your campus towards the campus goals. To do this, you're going to want to consider the kinds of support you will provide to teachers throughout the year.

To decide what kinds of support will work best for your goals and your faculty, you'll want to consider the following questions:

Different types of administrators have different support systems already in place. For example, at some schools, there are 90-minute PLCs every week for every grade levels. Other schools have it every other week. I worked at a school where the PLC was 90 minutes, once a month. 45 minutes were taken up with training and the remaining 45 minutes were left to us for planning. So obviously, our planning was done elsewhere.

At my current school, we have a 90-minute PLC every week. Each grade level meets with either me or the Math/Science coach, and they put together plans for the next two weeks. Last year, our PLC was at the end of the day, so we had a little extra time. We included a short minilesson (article, modeled lesson, activity) that the teachers could use in their teaching at the beginning of each PLC.

We also have weekly Learning Thursday meetings after school. We provide one hour of training. Sometimes it's the whole faculty. Sometimes the math/science coach takes half (or some) of the grade levels, and I take the rest. Sometimes we do a book study with small groups. Sometimes we do state- and district-required testing trainings. These systems were in place when I started there, so that's what we work with. It's actually a good chunk of time to work with teachers at the whole group level and at the grade level.

If teachers tutor every day after school, that time is out. So a book study scheduled at 3:00 on Tuesdays probably won't have a very good turnout! If teachers are overburdened with tons of clerical and administrative stuff to do (so... all teachers everywhere, it seems!), then conference times are going to be precious.

The biggest idea here: Don't waste teacher time. It's precious. That being said, part of being a great teacher is learning. Somewhere there has to be a balance of supporting teacher learning while providing them the time they need to do their job. Anything you give them needs to be the best, because it takes up their time. It needs to be important and useful.

Think back to your instructional goals for the year. Are they broad, sweeping, campus-wide initiatives like STEAM, STEM, or Whole Brain? Things that will impact every teacher and require change from every teacher? Then you'll probably be best off rolling out a campus-wide training with follow-up trainings throughout the year. In addition to this, you'll want to check in on the classrooms through instructional rounds. Perhaps you'll involve the teachers, too and have grade levels visit each other to see how the initiative is going and what they can learn from each other.

If the campus goals are differentiated across grade levels, you'll want to differentiate the support they receive. Providing a training designed for fourth and fifth to the entire campus is a waste of their time, and the #1 goal of providing teachers with support is not wasting their time. This kind of initiative, such as better understanding the reading standards, or incorporating word work practices into read aloud, is probably best done in a small group setting. Model the lessons, read the related articles, have teachers share strategies and explore the materials within their grade levels or a small span of grade levels, such as K-1.

Individual teachers need support, too. This is not a comment on "weak" or "strong" teachers. Rather, it's about teachers working through their own learning curve at different places in their teaching careers. Working with whole groups can raise the tide that lifts all boats, but individual teachers need differentiated support depending on their individual needs.

For example, if your entire school is working on Writer's Workshop, and 90% of the school-wide support is going to be based around this initiative, you won't be supporting the teachers who are struggling with classroom management or guided reading. This requires 1:1 support, such as coaching conversations, recommending of books, or sharing of resources. Take the teacher on tour to visit other teachers and see how things are working for them! Encourage the collaboration.

After you've done some trainings and some modeling, it's time to take a look and see: How's it going? Think about how you'll evaluate how things are going and what adjustments you'll need to make.

There are two ways to check in:

One way I've done this is by making a sweeping walk-through.

These aren't formal. Obviously, I'm not administration; I'm support staff. So what I do is go into all the affected classrooms and look for the implementation of the initiatives that we are working on. It's not punitive, and it's not a "gotcha". The purpose is to look at the progress towards the initiative and decide if the support you're providing is actually supporting teachers in moving towards the initiative. The issues with this are: you might not always see what's really going on. It's hard to know what really happens on a day-to-day basis.

Another way is to get teacher feedback.

A survey is a handy way to see what people think. The issues with this are: sometimes people aren't honest (for 100 different reasons), and sometimes you're just not speaking the same language. That's something else I address in my new ebook!

Once you've checked in to see how it's going, you can recalculate (my GPS's favorite thing to say) and make adjustments to your support!

So now you're ready! You're all set! You are prepared to get started this school year and to be an incredible instructional coach!

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